Improvement in carding-machines



1 UNITED. STATES i PATENT OFFICE.

HORATIO N. GAMBRILL AND SINGLETON F. BURGEE, OF WOODBURY MILLS,

i MARYLAND.

IMPROYEM ENT IN CARDINGA-MACHINES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 12,469, dated February 27, 1855.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that We, HORATIO N. GAM- BRILL and SINGLETON F. BURGER, of Woodbury Mills, in the county of Baltimore and State of Maryland, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Carding-Engines for Carding Cotton; and We do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and eXact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part thereof, in .which- FigureV l represents 'a side view. Fig. 2 represent-s a longitudinal vertical section, and Fig. 3 represents a portion detached from the machine to better illustrate its special operation. f Similar letters in the several figures denote like parts. a

Carding-engines as at present constructed are limited in their operation from two causes: First. The working-cylinder is capable of holding and Working double as much cotton as can with safety be fed onto it with one pair or set of feeding-rollers, for'to force the feeding in of the cotton. requires either a highly-increased speed to the feeding-rolls, which makes their operation uncertain, or the lap must be increased in thickness, which strains the carding teeth or Wires, and if carried to any extent would make it impossible for the teeth to pass through the lap at all,

` so as to accomplish the carding operation,

Second. The engine must be4 repeatedly stopped to clean the working-cylinder of the cotton, gum, dirt, &c., which becomes packed therein, so as to `prevent the accomplishing of good work. Besides, the cleaning of the working-cylinder every time it is done, in addition to the stoppage and expense of so-cleaning, varies the operation, it being reasonable that when packed with cotton, &c., which is not removed by any of the Working parts of the machine, the cylinder will not take from the rolls and deliver to the Workers or doffer the same amount of material that it can when divested of this constantly-accumulatin g dirt, &c. Thus by the present system the operation of carding is a constantly-varying one, while the main portions of the machine are restricted in the amount of work which they are capable of performing by the imperfection a of some of the minor parts of the machine.

The object of our invention is twofoldirst,.to increase the capacity of those parts of two or more pairs or sets of feeding-rolls,

or their equivalent appliances, which will deliver the cotton onto the working-cylinder at two or more points, fo'r the purpose of feeding in as much as the cylinder can carry Without making or causing the teeth to` pass through so thick a lap as to endanger their `breaking or bending, and to keep the feedingrollers at a moderate rate of speed and perform one-third more work Without any but a very slight expense to the machine; second, so gearing the main working-cylinder and stripper as that their relative velocities or motions may be periodically reversed or changed by an automatic shipper or other equivalent mechanical appliances, and so that the cylinder shall strip the stripper and the stripper strip the cylinder at regular intervals, which entirely prevents the accumulation or packing upon the Working cylinder and enables it to run for weeks without cleaning, this being rather a preventative of than a remedy for` this inconvenience in carding-engines.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use our inventionhwe will proceed to describe the same with reference to the drawings, confining the description more closely to the novel features of the invention.

A represents the main cylinder, B the workers, and C the strippers, which may be made and operated in any of the usual Well-known ways. The doffer, also, may be made in the usual form.

D D D D represent two pairs or sets of lap-rollers, and E E E E two pairs or sets of feeding-rollers, by which the lap is fed onto The advantages of this arrangement areparticularly set forth in the object and nature of our invention, being for the purpose of furnishing the iieece or lap in thin sheets to the main working-cylinder without increasing the velocity of the feed-rollers or causing the card-teeth to pass through so thick a iieece and strain or break them, and also to furnish to the main cylinder a greater amount of material, which from its size it is fully capable of receiving and working, and greater than can be delivered to it with safety or economy by one set of feeding-rollers only; and We would here state that although we have represented but two pairs or sets of feedingrollers more may be used, and instead of feeding-rollers alone we may use leadersin or lickers-in, as they are termed, in connection with the feed-rollers, the object being to deliver the lnaterial'onto the Working-cylinder at two 'or more points.

On the end of one of the workers we attach a cam F, which works in a fork in the end of a shipper G. This shipper G at its lower end straddles an endless belt H, which passes around two conical pulleys I J One of the conical pulleys l receives its motion from a pulley K on the shaft of the main workingcylinder A and transmits motion through the belt H to the conical pulley J, placed on the shaft of a stripper M, Fig. 2. These cone-pulleys stand in a reversed position in relation to each other, and when the belt H is equidistant from the extreme ends of the cone-pulleys the relative velocities of the peripheries of the main cylinder A and of the stripper M are the same; but as the cam F revolves the shipper carries the belt H back and forth from end toy end of the cone-pulleys and changes their relative velocities, so that about half the time the cylinder A is stripping the cylinder M, while during the remaining period, or half of the time, the cylinder M is stripping the main cylinder. Thus by an automatic movement the functions of these cylinders are reversed at regular intervals, which prevents tlie material from clogging or packing upon the main cylinder, and avoids the necessity of stopping the machine t0 clean the main cylinder, the cotton being constantly loosened up and taken oif by the workers.

It is obvious that instead of getting these reversed movements by the means herein specified they may be had by gearing up or down from any other of the moving parts of the machine, and by the aid of these appliances from thirty to iifty per cent. more work can be done than by machines as ordinarily constructed without them, and as one of the means or modifications of the getting up of these alternating motions of the stripper and main cylinder the stripper, instead of merely changing its velocity in the same direction, may have its motion reversed, or so as to run backward at stated periods and produce the same result. r By this method of constantly stripping the main cylinder it is found that the waste is much less than by any other carding-machine known to us. This may be accounted for by the constantly loosening up of the cotton on the main cylinder, and to the facility which such loosening up gives to the doifer to take everything from the cylinder.

Having thus fully described the nature of our invention, what we claim therein as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

l. The application of two or more sets or pairs of feeding-rollers to the Working-cylinder of carding-engines, substantially in the manner and for the purpose set forth.

2. The reversing of the relative velocities of the peripheries of the main working-cylinder and stripper ill at intervals by an automatic movement, for the purpose of cleaning or preventing the clogging or packing of the main cylinder, substantially as described.

HORATIO N. GAMBRILL. SINGLETON F. BURGEE. Witnesses to the signature of H. N. Gainbrill:

JOHN CooHRANE, RoBT. PooLE. i

Vitnesses to the signature of S. F. Bui-gee:

A. B. SToUGHToN, JOHN MCMULLEN. 

